


so open up your morning light

by andromeda3116



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromeda3116/pseuds/andromeda3116
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dreams begin right around the time they move into the new apartment; "I'm telling you," her coworker says over their lunch break, "he was a lover in a past life."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The dreams begin right around the time they move into the new apartment.

Sometimes, they're innocent, tasting vaguely of memory; a woman with short, black hair laughing with her over a movie and a glass of wine, or a nightmare of watching Henry calling a different woman "Mom" as he walks away from her.

Other times, they're less innocent, and less familiar; a man kissing her with breathless passion, pushing her back onto a bed, fingers slipping between her legs. It's always the same man, black hair and striking blue eyes and stubble and these bizarre details, a missing hand and a tattoo on the other arm, a vague impression of an accent rough in her ear, cold metal of a ring on her inner thigh.

It's unsettling, and she always wakes up with a sense of  _disappointment,_  disappointed that it isn't real, he isn't real.

"I'm telling you," her coworker says over their lunch break, "he was a lover in a past life. I know a medium, she can look into it for you, tell you who he is."

"Past lives?" she repeats, raising an eyebrow in skepticism. "Seriously?"

"Look, I'll go with you. I'm curious, too. Who knows, maybe I was someone cool in a past life, you never know."

She rolls her eyes, but it's so specific —  _he's_  so specific — that she can't think of a better explanation. "All right, I'll bite," she says, throwing up her hands. "Tomorrow? Around 2, before Henry gets out of school."

Anna grins. "Sure!"

.

The medium looks exactly like Emma would have thought a medium would look — an "office" smelling strongly of nag champa, bangles and long curls and floor-length skirts — but when she talks, she's surprisingly reasonable.

"I know," she laughs. "It sounds strange to the uninitiated — I thought it was a load of crap the first time someone mentioned it to me, too. But there are some things that simply defy all other explanation. Anna said you're having dreams?"

"Yeah," she replies uneasily, taking a seat and looking around. "Same guy, all these weird details."

"What sort of dreams?"

She blinks. "Um."

The medium catches on, with a knowing "ah" and looks away with a little smile. "Well, they say that some loves are strong enough to transcend lifetimes. If you'll come with me…"

Emma follows the woman into a warm room, feeling like a total idiot, and sinks into the couch, a plush, overstuffed thing that's so comfortable it should probably be outlawed by the Catholic church as an agent of sin, while the medium turns on a white noise machine, setting it to a soft, distant rush of the ocean.

"You'll have to relax, love," the woman says quietly, and something jolts inside of her at the term of endearment.

She  _is_  pretty on-edge, she reasons. This whole thing is just  _bizarre._

"Close your eyes," the medium murmurs, and begins directing her through doors and light and the dream, as much as she's willing to tell ( _not damn much_ , not to a total stranger); she tells her to describe the man in as much detail as she can remember — but the more she tries to grasp his image, the more it slips away.

"It's all right," she says soothingly. "Don't fight it, just move on. You said this isn't the only dream, who else do you dream of?"

In the end, she doesn't feel much better — all they settle on is that she was alone in that past life too, that she's a wandering soul always looking for a family, a home,  _love,_  but, "in that life, you found it," the medium tells her with a smile.

"Why do I dream that I'm losing Henry?" she asks fervently, and the woman places her hand over hers.

"That's not residue of a past life, Emma," she answers, sympathy in her face, the sort of sympathy that unnerves her, especially coming from strangers. "That's good, old-fashioned anxiety. You said you nearly gave him up for adoption, didn't you? That dream, I think, is just the lingering fear and guilt, what might have happened if you hadn't changed your mind. It's natural," she adds warmly. "Everyone worries about what might have been, if they'd made a different crucial decision."

"It's just so… specific," she mutters, running a hand through her hair. "Always the same woman who adopted him, she's…  _evil."_

"Of course she is," the medium replies, and squeezes her hand. "As I said, it's your fear that breeds that dream. You're  _afraid_  that he might have ended up in an abusive home, rather than with a loving family. It's all right."

She sighs; her words make sense, but they don't strike true. Maybe, she thinks, maybe she's just being paranoid.

"Well, thank you," she shrugs, standing up and wiping her hands on her jeans.

"If you have any questions, don't hesitate to come back," the medium says, standing and hugging her — Emma fights the urge to recoil, touchy-feely people  _ugh_  — with a smile. "You have such an interesting mind, Emma. There's a lot of pain in your past, but a lot of good, too. I hope you can reconnect with that, in time."

"Yeah," she murmurs as she leaves. "Me too."

.

She dreams of him again that night, his lips hot on her skin and his voice in her ear, a rough chuckle and a muted  _Really, Swan, resorting to seers to find me?_  but the dream fades into white noise soon after she wakes up.

.

"My life continues to make no sense," she tells Anna, tossing her bag onto her chair. "Some crazy, hot…  _pirate_  guy showed up at my door yesterday morning, babbling something about my family being in danger? And he kissed me."

"Kissed you?" Anna repeats, incredulous. "What, like, 'hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name?'"

She rolls her eyes. "I don't know, I kneed him in the balls."

_"Really?"_

"What would you have done?" she counters, aghast at Anna's disbelieving tone. "Made out with some stranger at the door?"

"Well, you  _did_  say hot," Anna says, shrugging. "How hot are we talking? Like, 'yeah, I'd do you if you the occasion came up' or 'get in my pants  _now'?"_

_The second one_ , she thinks, and coughs. "He was wearing leather pants," she says by way of answer; Anna laughs.

"Did he pull them off? I mean, did they work?"

"I wasn't exactly checking out the goods," she replies, rolling her eyes again. "My son was in the kitchen, I'm not just gonna… drag some crazy guy into my bed because he's pretty."

The really bizarre thing, she thinks but doesn't say, the  _really_ bizarre part, is how  _familiar_  he seemed.

He called her 'Swan' — not Emma, just  _Swan_  with a familiar inflection, but she can't remember where she's heard that tone before.

.

He's waiting for her when she leaves the office for lunch, leaning against the wall like a holdover from a different era, and when he spots her, he holds up his hands in supplication.

"Hear me out," he says immediately, and she opens her mouth to tell him to go to hell, that she really  _is_  going to call the cops this time, but then she looks at him and —

He's missing a hand.

The words come out of her mouth in dumb shock, and she takes a closer look at him — black hair,  _check,_  blue eyes,  _check,_ missing hand,  _check,_  rings,  _check,_  stubble,  _check, shit shit shit shit_  — and an odd, closed expression comes over his face.

"Yes," he replies shortly, "I am. It's a rather long story."

Rough accent, low like sweet nothings —  _check._

_He isn't supposed to be real_.

She can't breathe; she doesn't even hear what he's saying as she stumbles forward and grabs his right wrist, wrenches his sleeve up to see — tattoo,  _check._

It's  _him,_  there's no doubt, the man she's dreamed of — but he's supposed to be part of some past life, long-dead from a time she's reincarnated out of, or whatever nonsense psychics sell. He's not real, he's not — he isn't  _real._

He's also picked up on her panic. "If we've never met before," he murmurs, fingers closing around her hand in an almost tender way, "how did you know I had that tattoo?"

She stares at it blankly — Milah,  _Milah,_  that name is familiar — _my first love, my Milah — someone from long ago_  — she blinks and the memory fades.

Abruptly, almost convulsively, she snatches her hand away from him.

"This isn't real," she breathes, and he tries to catch her by the arm, but she wrenches it out of his hand before he can grasp her.

"Emma, please,  _listen to me_  — "

She  _can't._

.

"He's real," she gasps to Anna, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her to the break room.

"What?"

"He's  _real,_  the man — the one I've been —  _dreaming_  about — it's — Crazy Hot Pirate Guy, that's who he is, I — I didn't get a good look at him the first time — "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait," Anna says, holding up her hands. "You're telling me that this guy is  _real?_  And  _alive?"_

"Yes! He was — he was standing outside, he tried to talk to me. It's  _definitely_  him, missing hand and tattoo and  _everything."_

"Outside?" Anna repeats, and presses Emma into a seat. "Look, I'll go talk to him, figure out what he's after. You're  _kind of_ panicking."

She returns a few minutes later, whistling in appreciation. "You weren't kidding about hot,  _Jesus,"_  she mutters, and Emma glares at her. "Okay, okay, he said he needs to talk to you, it's important. He wants to meet you at the cafe on the corner to discuss whatever's going on. He was kind of cagey about that, but he apologized for going to your apartment, said if it made you feel better, he'd only talk to you in public from now on."

It does, sort of.

"He seemed… really…" Anna muses, and finally winces. "I can't figure out the right word. Pining? I don't know, he seems really worried about you."

"I don't even know him," she gasps; Anna makes a face.

"Maybe you do?" she says softly. "He was talking about amnesia, and you've been dreaming about him, and… well, he definitely knows  _you._  I asked him some questions, and it doesn't come off like he's stalking you, you know? He has no idea where Henry goes to school, but… he knows Henry's father's name."

A jolt of horror strikes her straight through.  _"What?"_

"I'm telling you, he isn't lying. He  _knows_  you." Anna sits down opposite her, worrying at her lip. "I think you should meet him. If you want, I'll go with you."

"No," she says slowly. "I can take care of myself."

.

"Who are you?" is the first thing she says to him, sitting hard in the chair opposite him, hoping to exude an aura of  _I will not be taking an ounce of shit from you_ ; if it sticks, he doesn't react to it.

"My name is Killian," he replies. "Killian Jones, I'm a… friend."

"Yeah, that's cute," she snaps, "except that doesn't tell me anything."

He takes a deep breath. "Your memory has been tampered with," he answers slowly. "To be honest, my dear, I would have let you be," he goes on, with a slightly self-loathing glance away, "if it wasn't a matter of life or death for your family."

"Why?" she asks, crossing her arms; he raises an eyebrow.

"Well, to start, you're happy, aren't you?" he says quietly. "I've no desire to disrupt that. Quite the opposite, really," he adds, with a short, breathy, and wholly insincere laugh. "You've had far more than your fair share of tragedy, love," he murmurs, and her breath catches in her throat at the word. "You deserve a happy ending, even if that necessitates my absence."

"You say that like we're a…  _thing."_

He winces, scratching the back of his head. "I had hoped so," he admits finally. "Although I never had the chance to…" he trails off, melancholy and somewhat miserable, the phrase  _might-have-been_ given voice.

The dream rises up in the back of her mind, the  _sense_  of it, how it feels different than all the others, and dimly, she wonders if maybe — theoretically, assuming Crazy Hot Pirate Guy isn't full of shit (which he  _is_ ) — she had once hoped, too.

She tries to blink it away, but it's hard, sitting across from him, hearing his voice, watching his lips move, to banish the phantom sensation of that stubble brushing against her lips, her neck, her thigh.

"I don't…" she starts softly, and glances away. "You know I can't believe you."

"Why not?" he challenges, just as soft. "You recognized me, some  _part_  of you remembers me."

She's overwhelmed by the feeling of being  _cornered,_  and very suddenly, she  _has_  to leave.

"Look, this is just — this is  _nonsense,"_  she says, standing up and looking around for an escape; in spite of the fact that they're sitting at a sidewalk table, literally  _surrounded_  by places she can run, she still feels like she'll never, ever get away from him.

And worse, she can't shake the feeling that she doesn't  _want_  to.

"Emma," he pleads, standing up and reaching out to touch her but backing off at the last moment. "Swan, please — "

He says her last name like a secret, some private history shared between lovers in the night; it frightens her at the same time that it thrills her, piques something sweet in her memory.

He's telling the truth, and she knows him, and he's right, some part of her remembers him, and Anna is right about the yearning, the way he looks at her as if the sun has come out after years of winter; he's been haunting her and he lingers under her skin and she can't — he  _can't_  be real.

"I'm sorry," she cries softly, urgently, retreating like a coward; his face falls; she runs. He calls after her once, such a familiar sound, but she doesn't turn around.

.

She dreams of him again, pulls him closer as desperately as she pushed him away in reality, repeating herself over and over,  _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, please don't leave me_ , and he forgives her without words, fingers tracing abstract shapes into her skin;  _you need not worry, love_ ,  _I'll always come back to you, I'm yours_.

When she wakes up, her pillow is wet, and she can't quite remember why.


	2. don't you drink their poison too

She dreams of the day Henry was born, so familiar: she glances to the side and Neal is there and he’s smiling and they’re  _happy,_  and she looks back at Henry, heart so full of love she can hardly breathe; she looks back up and it’s the stranger —  _Killian,_  that was his name — standing beside her with that soft look on his face he was wearing when she opened the door. The bed dips as he sinks into it beside her and cups the back of Henry’s head as she leans back into his arms.

He kisses her temple and she wakes up.

.

"I saw that guy again," Anna tells her, and Emma chokes on her coffee.

"What?"

"Crazy Hot Pirate Guy," she explains. "He was at the cafe on the corner, I stopped to have a cup of coffee with him. He’s actually pretty cool," she says thoughtfully, tapping her chin with a pen. "Real old-school gentleman, he paid for my drink and a scone and stood up when I got out of my chair, the whole thing. Also introduced himself by kissing the back of my hand, which — I don’t know if you know this — is the  _hottest thing in the entire world._ ”

"Well, you can… have him," she replies, even though the thought of the man kissing Anna turns her stomach and she can’t say why. Anna sees through her, giving her the classic  _bitch please_  look. She (badly) feigns ignorance. “What?”

"Even if I — look, Emma," she starts, finally getting up and joining her, leaning on her desk, "you’ve been dreaming about this guy for a  _year._  And… the way he’s talking about amnesia… I know we were talking about past lives and obviously he’s not from a  _real_ past life, like reincarnation, but,” she goes on, leaning forward, “if he  _is_  from some past you can’t remember — and the way he talks about you, I would bet my entire bank account — “

"All seven dollars of it," Emma mutters petulantly. Anna glares.

“ _Like I was saying_ , if he’s telling the truth and your memories  _have_ been tampered with — “

"By  _what?”_  she cuts in, using volume to hide her unease. She’s been a skeptic her entire life but this is… like the psychic said, it defies all other explanation. “Some shady government agency? A cackling witch in the woods somewhere? ‘Tampering with memories’ is something that happens in  _movies,_  Anna, not reality.”

“ _Like. I. Was. Saying_ ,” Anna snaps shortly, crossing her arms. “Then he really  _would_  be part of a past life, which would explain the dreams. Whoever messed with your memories couldn’t  _quite_  erase him. He  _obviously_  meant something to you.”

"Anna," she sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose to both stave off a headache and hide the fact that she’s starting to think Anna might have a point. But that doesn’t make  _sense._  “You need to stop with all the conspiracy theories. First the moon landing is a hoax, now some shady —  _someone_  has messed with your friend’s memories… Anna, you  _have_  to stop believing everything you hear.”

Anna stays quiet for a long moment, and when Emma glances up, the guilt starts to sink in — she looks genuinely  _hurt._  Finally, she takes a deep breath and pushes off her desk.

"It’s better than believing in nothing," she says softly, and walks away. But she catches herself at her own desk. "Oh, by the way," she adds, much colder than Anna’s ever been to her, "I told him you’ve been dreaming about him."

 _"What?"_  she cries, eyes widening. “Why would you — “

"Because he deserves to know," she counters loudly, completely uncaring of the stares coming from their coworkers. Emma is too horrified to be embarrassed about them. "He deserves to know that it’s  _not_  a lost cause, that the woman he loves hasn’t  _completely_ forgotten him.”

_The woman he loves._

She could hardly deny it, but she isn’t sure she likes having it so explicitly spelled out to her. “He doesn’t  _love_  me,” she replies weakly, and Anna scoffs.

"Keep rocking that denial, girl."

.

Anna still hasn’t forgiven her by lunch — Emma can’t really blame her, she  _was_  unnecessarily harsh — and the idea of eating the little frozen dinner she brought for herself makes her nauseous, so she makes the (stupid, inevitable) decision to go to the cafe, justifying it with  _if he was there this morning at 7:30, surely he won’t be there now_.

Even though she knows damn well he will be.

She isn’t wrong.

For half a second, she considers joining him, but then takes her own table inside, feeling his eyes on her the whole time; when he doesn’t follow her in, she’s honestly surprised, and a little disappointed.

Just as she’s thinking that she should stop kidding herself, that she _has_  to go and talk to him again, if only to lie like a rug and tell him that Anna was lying about the dreams, one of her other coworkers shows up, looking out the window uneasily.

"Who’s the leather fetishist staring at you?" Chris asks, and Emma waves a hand.

"Just some crazy guy who keeps trying to get me to help him with something," she replies dismissively. "Thinks I’m… I don’t know, it’s weird."

He stares at her in slowly-growing horror. “Emma, some lunatic is _stalking_  you? Why haven’t you called the police?”

"No, it’s not — " she says hastily, holding up both hands in supplication. "It’s not like that, he’s not — I don’t think he’s stalking me."

"Then what’s he doing here, half a block away from your workplace?"

"Chris, he’s harmless."

"What makes you think that?"

She can’t explain it. She only told Anna about the dreams because she dragged her out to drinks one night and Emma had about three too many, ended up drunkenly divulging secrets like the (heavily censored) story of what happened with Henry’s father and the fact that she was having explicit dreams about someone she didn’t know.

Through no fault of anyone’s but the bartender who supplied her with entirely too many whisky sours, Anna knows her better than anyone else. Chris doesn’t have the same kind of security clearance, in spite of and in part  _because of_  how desperately he wants it.

"He… It’s just a gut feeling," she answers, wincing at how lame that response is. To her total lack of surprise, he doesn’t look convinced.

"Well,  _my_  gut says otherwise,” he counters quietly, honestly and _extremely_  concerned. “Look at him, Emma!” he hisses, glancing at the window; Killian is no longer watching her. “He’s  _obviously_ dangerous. And probably some kind of freak, who wears that much leather in the middle of the day?”

"I dunno," she mutters, "I think it’s kind of hot."

Chris doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that, which is what she was hoping for; maybe if she makes him uncomfortable enough, he’ll leave.

It’s not that she doesn’t like Chris, or that they aren’t friends — after Anna, he’s probably the closest friend she’s ever had — but it’s clear that he wants more and she doesn’t, and now — with the man from her dreams showing up outside her door and kissing her — she feels particularly awkward around him.

"It’s fine, Chris," she says, gathering her things and standing up. "Really."

As she leaves, she notices that Killian is gone.

.

He’s there at the cafe when she passes by the next morning — but he’s busy flirting with the waitress (who clearly has the  _opposite_  of a problem with the leather) and doesn’t appear to see her. She tries to swallow the irrational jealousy, with little success.

.

He’s there again at lunch — and she’s figured it out, she thinks: he’s spending all this time at the cafe because he promised not to go to her apartment again and he doesn’t want to just linger on the sidewalk outside her building. But the weather has been nice, the cafe is close and gives him a good excuse to stay close to her — and it’s up to  _her,_  whether or not she wants to talk to him.

She hesitates, but finally decides to go over to his table; she doesn’t sit, instead standing at the chair opposite him, hands planted on the back of it.

"Why is it so important that I listen to you?" she snaps. He blinks, apparently unfazed by the lack of pleasantries.

"Because the people you love — little though you may recall them — are in danger," he replies simply.

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say," she says, injecting her tone with as much dismissal as she can. "But what does that matter to  _you?”_

He seems to deflate a little, sinking further back into his seat, expression pained. “Don’t make me say it, love,” he murmurs, self-loathing increasing with every word.

A black hole opens up in her gut; her heart clenches and the breath is pulled from her lungs and her fingers go a little numb and she doesn’t know why this is affecting her like it is because Anna  _said_  this, she quietly  _knew_  this, he’s made no effort to hide it.

 _"Why?"_  she explodes, and it’s obvious, it’s written on his face, on the flinch and the wince, that he knows what she means. “Why  _me?_  My life was going just  _fine,_  until you showed up and — and  _screwed everything up!_ ”

He glances around at the people staring at them now and stands abruptly, and she gets the odd sense that he’s being sucked in by the same black hole, he’s got the same sort of tense motion and shallow breathing. “Let’s not do this  _here,_  shall we?”

She almost tells him to go to hell, but the gravity between them is too strong; if she leaves now, she’ll just come right back. “Fine.”

They walk down the street aimlessly, somewhat awkwardly, until he finally stops on the edge of the park and pulls a bottle of purple liquid out of his pocket. “I know not to hope you’ll believe it,” he starts quietly, turning it over and over in his hand, “but this potion… it  _should_  restore your memories.”

"You’re right," she snarls, "I  _don’t_  believe it.”

He looks up as though praying for answers to fall from the sky, and slips the bottle back into his pocket. “Emma, the very  _last_ thing I want is for you to come to any harm, I swear it. I’ve already told you, I wouldn’t be here, had I any other choice. Look at me,” he says desperately, turning to her and looking her straight in the eye; an electric shock dances across her skin, “have I told you a lie?”

She starts to ask him how he knows about that, but catches herself — he’ll just tell the same story, and, at any rate, the way he asks that question strikes something  _deep_  inside her, the same familiar lurch she felt when she saw him at the door. Less than memory, more than déjà vu.

Emma can’t keep up the anger; the look on his face is too sincere.

It’s hard to breathe.

"Just because you believe something doesn’t make it true," she replies in a low voice; he deflates again.

"Emma — " he starts, but doesn’t get anywhere.

"Freeze!"

She’s just as startled as he is; two cops are coming closer, guns raised. The one who spoke waves his gun at Killian, who holds up his hands, expression wooden. “Step away from the girl.”

"Wait, what is this?" she asks, staring at them in mounting…  _fear._ Fear for him. She’s  _afraid_  that something bad is about to happen to Crazy Hot Pirate Guy _._  ”It’s fine, I’m not — Look, officers, I don’t know who called you, but he’s not  _threatening_  me.”

"Caller said you might say that," the other officer replies, pulling Killian’s arms behind his back and cuffing him. "Said the mad leather junkie here somehow had you convinced he wasn’t gonna hurt you."

"He  _isn’t,”_  she snaps.

"So why’s he trying to get you alone?"

Killian glances at the cop then, in affronted confusion, and gets out, “I’m not trying to — ” before the cop jerks on his arms sharply to shut him up.

"Look, the guy who called us said he’s been stalking you, is that true?"

"I — " she splutters, because the answer is both yes and no. "Not — I wouldn’t call it  _stalking…”_

The officers, not surprisingly, aren’t convinced; in fact, quite the opposite — she can practically  _hear_  the words  _Stockholm syndrome_ passing between them when they glance at each other.

"Right, well, you got into a bit of a fight at the cafe back there," the first cop says, and she scoffs.

"I wouldn’t — that wasn’t a  _fight,_  I just — “

"Just to be safe," the other one cuts in, and they’re already leading him away.

She tries to catch his eyes as he passes, and insists, “I didn’t do this, I swear, I  _didn’t_  call them.”

He glances back at her, expression brittle. “I never thought you did,” he lies.


End file.
